My name is Bob Land. I am a full-time freelance editor, indexer, and proofreader. This blog is my website.

You'll find my rate sheet and client list here, as well as musings on the life of a freelancer; editing, proofreading, and indexing concerns and issues; my ongoing battles with books and production; and the occasional personal revelation.

My favorite phrase of recent times is "Closing the barn door after the horse has gotten out."

Now extra security is needed? We're gonna have a rash of copycat psychokillers at that particular mall? Wasn't the time for extra security beforehand? And would it have helped? (No, no, undoubtedly, unlikely)

A few years ago, some dolt had some stuff in his shoes that could maybe have made a bomb, if he knew what he was doing. Now every traveler in America should wear bedroom slippers to the airport to make security go quicker. And someone had some bad liquids on a plane, so let's make it so you can only carry three ounces of something on a plane. (There's no doubt that even 3 ounces of the proper substance could create a whole lot of hell. I remember what a friend of mine said could be done with a small amount of magnesium.) A radio talk show host pointed out that you can file down a credit card edge to be as sharp as any box cutter. You going to ban credit cards in airports? Oh, hell no. Can't do that. Hmm. Wonder why.

I’ve spent much of the last few days battling an APA-style author index. Allow me to explain.

I’ve referred elsewhere to the Chicago Manual of Style, one of the style books that guides what people like me do for a living. It’s designed generally for people working in the humanities. Other style manuals, all of which I’ve used, are from the Associated Press (the formerly called AP Style Book and Libel Manual [I love that title]), the Society of Biblical Literature (great for classical works, not just scripture), the MLA (mostly for literary criticism), and the American Psychological Association (mostly for social sciences). Individual publishers also have their own style manuals. I have one for the Chicken Soup for the Soul series which looks just like a Chicken Soup book. Shows what you can do when you have the printing press in your basement, as this particular publisher does.

This wonderful new client of mine, who essentially created the paradigm under which I now work (see earlier post), wants me to do an author index for a APA-styled book. OK, no biggie. I’ve done indexes for books that seemed to be in foreign languages (see earlier posts), I’ve done extensive scriptural and classical work indexes (pains in the butt on a major scale), I’ve done proper name indexes. What’s the problem?

The problems (note the plural) are that you’re not just identifying individual authors, but you also have to identify them by their initials. So, you might have 10 different Smiths. You might only have one McKinney, for example, but because of the individual chapter authors’ styles, he might be X. McKinney in one place and X. S. McKinney somewhere else, and those have to be kept different, because X. and X. S. might not actually be the same person (could be father and son, for example), so being precise is important.

Which brings up another problem. What if the only thing different is the authors’ styles from one chapter to the next in a multiauthor book? What if one only cited one initial, and the other cited two? Do you merge the listings? And if you do, at what point do you stop second-guessing the author and copyeditor? Best answer is, you don't second-guess them at all.

Problem 3: et freaking al. OK, so you have a listing of Smith et al. in the text. All the names aren’t listed, so you have to go to the list of references at end of chapter or book, which means twice the work. This book includes some listings in the references that read Smith, Jones, Brown, Black, Johnson, Grillo, McCarthy, Weinstein, Lee, Li, Garrity et al. That’s not an indexing problem, as much as a commonsense issue. If you’ve listed 11 names before the et al, you gotta wonder: how many people are needed to screw in a lightbulb?

The only other client that follows APA for whom I’ve done indexes had an interesting approach: only cite them in the index if their full name was mentioned in the chapter, which happens rarely in most APA books, because they use an author-date citation style (Land, 2007). So there are not many opportunities to use a full name, unless it’s, I guess, the author’s friend.

Already I’ve gone through three possibilities of how to build this author index, which have involved PDF searches building from the references list, keying in the names of the researchers as I’m going along, having my wife read the names to me . . . . 40-something hours later I am left with an 18-page, 10-point, two-column list that seemingly has more questions than answers, mostly revolving around initials. I’ve probably got about 6 hours of dicking around with that document until I get it right. Oh, and now I'm writing the subject index, too.

Then, at about 5 this morning, the solution hits me for the authors. Key in the references exactly as they appear in the chapters: name, year, everything. Alphabetize/sort at end of each chapter. Compare this list with the end-of-chapter references, adding initials and deleting years. Then also, the et als will be right where I need them. Then re-sort. I did this for about five pages of a chapter just as a test. Works beautifully. Looks wonderful. I am considering going back and scrapping the previous three days of work and rebuilding the index this way. I might not tell my wife, though, as I don’t want her thinking her efforts were wasted. But I guess in the long run they weren’t, as it took a bit of trial and error to get to the proper solution. And I need to remember that that’s the way it was when I started indexing about 10 years ago. I didn’t have all the tricks I do now, so there was a learning curve.

Irony: The book on which all this is happening deals with growth following trauma. Life imitates art.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Around our house, we have a name for customer service people from India who we end up talking with on the phone: Priscilla. If I tell my wife or sons that I had a long talk with Priscilla today, they know exactly who I'm referring to. In the past it's usually been representatives of CompuServe or Delta Air Lines. And it's always frustrating.

These people are taught how to interact with Americans . . . sort of. They are fed some warm and fuzzy catchphrases that if you're lucky will jibe with the time of the day you have called them. They are coached in losing their delightful accents, and sorry to say, they probably have to stuff a good bit of their IQs to deal with the folks who call. But some things still just don't get across.

Mostly with me it deals with my name: Bob. Not a hard one. Pronounced almost universally through the contiguous United States as "Bahb." When I’m speaking to Priscilla or her boyfriend, usually it comes back to me as “Bawp.” Kind of like the Ramones when they’re singing “Blitzkreig Bop.”

OK? So why "Priscilla"? Because invariably these obvious South Asians do not have names that go with their country like Aruna or Swaminandahili or well, anything else that’s fourteen syllables long with a vowel for every second consonant. After their scripted spiel, it’s always, “This is Priscilla” or “My name is Oliver Wendell Douglas” or “Hi, I’m Joseph.” And they will meet every one of my requests perfectly and I will leave the phone happy. I was actually told exactly those words one day. I hope they have since discarded that script.

So, I’m on the phone with Joseph one day, and he has my account information in front of him as I’m reciting my name, rank, and serial number. Over the thousands of miles and dozen time zones, I can tell that Joseph is having trouble processing the information. He stops me and says, “You say you’re name is Bawp. So who is Rawbert?”

Quickwitted as I was that day, I put on the friendly downhome American voice and say, “C’mon, Joseph. All your friends call you Joe, don’t they? It's the same thing."

Silence.

I really like my current Internet provider because they are 24/7, and they are almost literally right up the street here in Bristol. The best time to call them is about 4 in the morning. You have their undivided attention, they always know the answers, they don't give me any guff for being an idiot (because you're always an idiot when you're calling), and not a freaking one of them is named Priscilla.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Most of the last five days were spent proofreading a 920-page psychiatry manual. Not only was it 920 pages, but it was also in 9/11 type. For you nonproduction folks, that's got nothing to do with terrorist attacks, but means 9 point type on 11 point leading. And on a 7x10 page, and did I mention 920 pages of it? Well, folks, that's a lot of damn reading. If I had to guess, it'd probably be in the 300- to 400,000 word range. And 9/11 type is, well, small for the task.

I'd have been bitching a whole lot more, except for the roughly 60 percent markup for rush charges.

This job comes to me courtesy of a company that lays claim to being the first in the US (about 40 years ago) to deliver outsourcing services for publishing company production. That is, proofreading, copyediting, typesetting is not done by the publisher, but by an outside firm. This is common practice today, and that 40-year-old innovation allows me now to do what I do in the friendly confines of my own basement.

Problem: the company I'm working for did not handle the typesetting. That particular task was parceled off to India.

Good god.

I had heard some months ago that work done in India comes back sloppy, and that's what happened here. They do exactly what they are told to do and not a centimeter more. No extra thought goes into the process. The queries come back in some form of pidgin English. The tabular material looks like hell.

I have no doubt it's cheaper to do business there. Will it in the long run remain that way? What about the charges for printers' errors? Directions lost in translation? Frustration trying to interpret queries?

I'm too tired to work up much of a rant on this topic. I've got three indexes to get done by next Wednesday, on (1) Catholic Social Justice, (2) the psychological effects of terror and trauma, and (3) the history of Christianity in Micronesia and Melanesia in the late 19th century. Who says this stuff isn't exciting?

----

Side note, speaking of excitement: one of our neighbors was arrested Thanksgiving morning for attempted murder. There's much more to the story so it's not as lurid as it seems. Frankly I'm happy to have him close by.

THE OLD RELIABLE

Rate Sheet

Note: Different rates may apply for self-publishing or overseas authors.

Copyediting—Take the word count of your manuscript and divide it by 265. That's a billable page. Remember to include footnotes/endnotes in the word count.

Electronic edit—edited files returned to publisher/author: $5+/page

Marked-up manuscript returned to publisher/author for keying changes—$5.25+/page

Typical turnaround time: 3–4 weeks from receipt of manuscript

Substantive editing—See above for determining page count.

Electronic edit—edited files returned to publisher/author—$6.25+/page

Marked-up manuscript returned to publisher/author for keying changes—$8+/page

Typical turnaround time: 3–4 weeks from receipt of manuscript

Higher editing rates apply for material that requires extensive rewriting or that includes complicating elements, such as massive reworking or cross-checking of documentation. Technical manuscripts (legal, medical, etc.) also subject to higher rates.

Contact me for bids on work if English is not your primary written language.

Indexing—Based on a 6x9 page; other page sizes adjusted proportionately

$5+/indexable page

$6+/indexable page for biographies and military histories

Typical turnaround time: 3–4 weeks from receipt of page proofs

Proofreading—based on a 6x9, one-column page; other page sizes and formats adjusted accordingly

Brushes with Fame

1. An old friend had to remind me of this one, because he remembers more about my life than I do. When I was a youngster, I threw up on Johnny Carson in an NYC theatre. Would have been in the early 1960s. I have no recollection of the event, but from what my mother said, he apparently handled it well.

2. The family went down to Plains, GA, maybe around 2004 to sit in on Jimmy Carter's Sunday school class. Afterward people could line up for a photo op with the president and Mrs. Carter. As we were in line, Tere (my wife) said, "I'm going to give him a kiss." I responded, "Wonderful. I'll catch up with you after Secret Service breaks your kneecaps." As we stepped up to pose with the Carters, my darling wife, never a wallflower, leans over and pecks him on the cheek. He just smiled and said, "Right on!"

4. Internationally acclaimed artist Thornton Dial was bribed fifty dollars to let our family give him a ride home; Birmingham to Bessemer, AL. Dial is justifiably suspicious of white folks he doesn't know; actually, I might have to say that's one thing we have in common. I'm always happy when going to a party to see a good dog to engage in proper conversation.

5. Gave a very drunk John Fahey a ride to an Atlanta airport hotel after a depressing performance, during which he became progressively more wasted on stage and basically just babbled more than playing guitar. Among his comments were that his father-in-law offered to give Fahey some money if his wife (the guy's daughter) would lose some weight. The sight of seeing the slump-shouldered Fahey shuffling into the hotel carrying his guitars haunts me still.

6. Lunch with Jane Fonda at Bulloch House, Warm Springs, GA, the morning after she filed for divorce from Massa Ted. The first time I saw her was when she stepped out of the back of the car she was sleeping in at the home of a folk artist we were both going to see: the Prophet Jesse Marshall. (She had apparently been up all night.) Bulloch House is a southern-style buffet, which La Jane took to right away. No healthy eating there. She was quite angered when they removed her plate from the table while she had stepped away before she had a chance to finish what she'd put on there to begin with. After spending some time with our two boys, she offered to adopt them if ever anything happened to my wife and me.

7. Garrison Keillor rode in my car; spoke with him later at apres-performance dessert party, Abingdon, VA. Keillor was invited (paid) to give a fundraising performance at Barter Theatre, the state theatre of Virginia, where my wife works. They needed a big vehicle to pick up Keillor, so they borrowed my Chevy Tahoe. Quite tall Keillor apparently sat in the way back and spoke on the cell phone the entire time (I was not invited to be in the car to pick him up). For a while we could say that our car had his DNA in it, but then we traded it in on a Prius, which gets 48 miles a gallon -- a whole lot better value than having a car where Garrison Keillor once sat. He was very nice after his performance, though -- apparently totally against type. I told him that A Prairie Home Companion used to save my Saturday nights in the early '80s when I was working at the printing plant.

8. Physically bumped into Jack Nicholson upstairs at Sardi's -- the famous Broadway theatre district bar -- 1977; the occasion was an "audition" (that is, a fundraiser) for a play that some folks were trying to get produced. The playwright and composer and two of the leads they had cast were there performing all the songs. Maybe 20 people were there, sitting in folding chairs gathered around the piano. One of the songs was a little ditty called "Tomorrow." The play ended up being Annie. Why, as a 17-year-old, I was invited to this gig is far less interesting, but one of the oddities of my life.

9. A very slight brush. Back around 1978 when I was in college, some friends and I traveled from Atlanta to Huntsville, AL, because, before transferring to school in Atlanta, one of my friends had been instrumental in arranging for Hunter S. Thompson to give a talk at the University of Alabama at Huntsville campus. Because of my friend’s remaining connections at the UAH campus, we knew when Thompson’s plane would be arriving, so we prepared ourselves properly to meet him at the airport—kind of the unofficial welcoming party. So we are positioned in the concourse and see Dr. Thompson’s unique stride coming toward us (along with the official welcoming party of two or three students). There are three or four of us unofficial types—longhaired, eyes glazed, and mostly in awe. My friend says in his most cultured tone, “Ah, Dr. Thompson,” at which point we begin genteel applause, as if we are at a ladies’ tea party or piano recital. Thompson takes one frightened look at us and darts into the airport bar. We follow, and take up our spots at the table next to him and his minders, trying to glean what we can from the conversation, which is virtually impossible, because even at his best, Thompson speech is mostly incomprehensible. After about 15 or 20 minutes, Thompson gets up to leave, stops by our table, and says, “Sorry. I thought you were some of Wallace’s boys,” referring to former governor, presidential candidate, and opportunistic segregationist George Wallace. Looking at us, you would have hardly associated us with Wallace supporters, but we were happy for the moment of attention and humor from the good doctor. When we saw him the next day giving his talk for the students, I’m not sure I understood one of every 10 words he said, but as a brush with fame goes, the trip was well worth it.

10. Added starter: Once when I was ushering at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta (early 1980s), I heard the Grateful Dead perform "Let It Be" for their sound check. Deadheads who've listened to thousands of hours of bootleg tapes assure me that the band never played that song. Well, maybe not during a concert, but I know what I saw and heard, performed for about 30 ushers and the guys at the sound board, who seemed to be more occupied with the lines of coke in front of them. Jerry Garcia and Donna Godchaux singing, if you're keeping score at home.

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In a minuteThere is timeFor decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.--T.S. Eliot